What do James Franco, Shaquille Oneil, Kristin Bell and Neil Young have in common? They have all used crowdfunding platforms like Crowdfunder to finance their projects. Crowdfunding has seen explosive growth in 2014 and is now the go-to way for startups to raise funding.

Crowdfunding Industry Growth

2011 – $1.5B

2012 – $2.7B

2013 – $5.1B

2014 – $10B

Crowdfunder at a Glance

Equity crowdfunding site

19,630 companies

84,253 users

Over $60M raised

46 deals funded

Top Crowdfunding Platforms

The top Crowdfunding companies that are leading the way heading into 2015 are Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Crowdfunder. These platforms have produced some of the top crowdfunding campaigns to date:

Coolest Cooler (Kickstarter) – $13.2M

Pebble (Kickstarter) – $10.2M

Bitvore (Crowdfunder) – $4.5M

PonoMusic (Crowdfunder) – $4M

Oculus VR (Kickstarter) – $2.4M (Acquired by Facebook for $2B)

Emerging Trends

Influencers and celebrities are capitalizing on the opportunity to leverage their social brands and followings into successful business ventures. Crowdfunder helps them do this by transforming Social Influence into Financial Capital. This trend will grow in 2015, given the massive success of companies like Beats by Dre and The Honest Company. Read more about how 10 top celebrity companies got started, are growing, and got funded here on Forbes.